THE USE OF COOPERATIVE INTEGRATED READING AND COMPOSITION (CIRC) TO IMPROVE THE READING COMPREHENSION OF THE FIRST YEAR STUDENTS OF MAN 1 PEKANBARU

Abstract

The main part of learning a language is the language skill. In learning English, the students will learn four language skills, namely: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading is considered as an important aspect in language learning, reading is a process of decoding message which readers own experience and knowledge. In teaching learning process, reading is a must for students in adding knowledge.Without having reading skill, it will be useless for the student to follow the class and they will be lack of knowledge.The problem that the writer intends to discuss in this paper is concerned with the reading ability of the second year students of MAN 1 Pekanbaru. The observation and interview which were conducted in pre research showed that the English text is difficult to be understood by the students for they did not have a sufficient reading skill to comprehend the texts. It is happened because the students are lack of enthusiasm in involving themselves in the English lesson and lack of vocabularies that make them difficult in interpreting and understanding the message of the text. To solve the problem, the teacher should improve her teaching technique from the old method to the new one. Steven & Slavin (1995) mention that problem of reading can be solved by doing Cooperative Integrated Reading and composition (CIRC). The reason for choosing the method because, it could help the teachers to create a very good way in teaching English. The teacher should utilize a teaching method that is attracting to teach reading. Which includes materials, comfortable environment, self-confidence teachers, etc. In other words, the better the teachers in using this strategy, the more interest the students in reading subject.